The present invention relates to fragrance compositions exhibiting antimicrobial activity with a hedonically acceptable odor. The present invention also relates to formulations incorporating such fragrance compositions.
Fragrances are commonly incorporated in a wide variety of household and industrial items, from perfumes to cleansers, to impart a pleasing odor to the item. Some fragrances have been reported to have weak bacteriostatic activity. However, this activity is believed to be too weak to be of practical use. See J. A. Morris et al., J. Amer. Oil Chem. Soc. 56(5):595-603 (1979), the entirety of which is herein incorporated by reference. To overcome this weak activity and achieve antimicrobial fragrances of practical use, either as bacteriostatic agents in preservatives and the like or as bactericidal agents in sanitizers & disinfectants and the like, combinations of fragrance materials with other materials are employed. For example, fragrances have been combined with a cationic phospholipid (U.S. Pat. No. 5,420,104). Fragrances have also been combined with a preservative and surface active agent (U.S. Pat. No. 5,306,707) or with an organic acid (European Patent Application 0 570 794 A2).
Another possible way to achieve useful activity is to increase the effective fragrance ingredient concentration until the desired activity is achieved (e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 5,306,707, wherein 30% effective perfume ingredients are needed to achieve activity in the combination). However, this produces an active perfume having an odor that is not pleasing and is not acceptable to the consumer in a final consumer product. Further, these fragrances also have an unacceptability high odor intensity index as the perfumer tries to cover the odor of the effective material with large amounts of other fragrance ingredients or materials having a high intensity. There is an inverse relationship of activity of the effective fragrance material and odor acceptability; that is, as antimicrobial activity increases, odor acceptability decreases.